lic mother whose name was Nagle, was educated first
at a Quaker school in Ballitore, Co. Kildare, and afterwards at
Trinity College, Dublin. He became a law student in London, but he
did not eventually adopt the law as a profession. He brought out in
1756 a _Vindication of Natural Society_, in which he so skilfully
imitated the style and the paradoxical reasoning of Bolingbroke that
many were deceived into the belief that the _Vindication_ was a
posthumously published production of the viscount's pen. In the
following year Burke published in his own name _A Philosophical
Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_,
which attracted widespread attention, was translated into German and
French, and brought its author into touch with all the leading
literary men of London. He was instrumental with Dodsley the
publisher in starting the _Annual Register_ in 1759, and for close on
thirty years he continued to supply it with the "Survey of Events."
He entered public life in 1760 by accompanying "Single-Speech"
Hamilton to Dublin when the latter was appointed Chief Secretary for
Ireland. In 1765 he was made private secretary to the prime minister,
the Marquis of Rockingham, and, as member for Wendover, entered
parliament, where he speedily made a name for himself. During Lord
North's long tenure of office (1770-1782) Burke was one of the
minority and opposed the splendid force of his genius to the
corruption, extravagance, and mal-administration of the government.
To this period belong, in addition to lesser works, his great
speeches _On American Taxation_ (1774) and _On Conciliation with
America_ (1775), as well as his spirited _Letter to the Sheriffs of
Bristol_ (1777). He had been elected member of parliament for Bristol
in 1774, but he lost his seat in 1780 because he had advocated the
relaxation of the restrictions on the trade of Ireland with Great
Britain and of the penal laws against Catholics. In the second
administration of Rockingham (1782) and in that of Portland (1783) he
was paymaster of the forces, a position which he lost on the downfall
of the Whigs in the latter year, and he never again held public
office. His speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings in 1788 is
universally and justly ranked as a masterpiece of eloquence. When the
French Revolution broke out, he opposed it with might and main. His
_Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790) had an enormous
circulation, reached an elev